You gotta be first or right. If you're both then that's lucky

Main menu

Category Archives: Growth and inflation

On my blog, I have tended to focus on monetary policy issues. Indeed the previous post from February 2014 was ominously titled “The sum of all tightenings” (now that I just read it, it turned out not to be a completely bonkers story). Today, too, I will focus on monetary policy, albeit from a more theoretical standpoint.

A few years after the crisis, some economists were pondering the idea of raising the inflation target. Most famously, a paper by Olivier Blanchard from 2010 suggests that the CPI target should be moved from 2 to 4% (short summary here). There was also an interesting paper from Laurence Ball four years later advocating the same thing. I remember at the time that the idea was ridiculed by “street” economists and strategists with the reasoning going along the lines of “yeah right, you can’t even meet your current target so good luck with a higher one”. Even the policy heavyweights like Ben Bernanke dismissed the idea back then and we simply moved on.

Those of you who follow the markets will be aware that last week Janet Yellen somewhat surprisingly said that the question of raising the inflation target is critical (a nice FT story here). Again, the idea was quickly dismissed, eg by Martin Wolf. In fact, I chuckled to see this familiar argument from the FT View, which entirely misses the point. Again.

But the Fed should not be distracted from the theoretical benefits of changing the goal while it has consistently failed to reach the current one.

In fact, before going into the crux of my argument let’s sort out this flawed observation of missing the inflation target. Below is the chart of the core CPI and PCE in the US in the last five years:

The core PCE has fluctuated around 1.5% and core CPI, while more volatile, has been around 2% for most of the time (except 2015). If someone thinks that from the economic agents’ point of view this is sufficiently far from the target to warrant making fun of the monetary authority then they are mistaken (and that would hold even if we weren’t exiting from the biggest forced deleveraging of a generation). For the purposes of this post, I will therefore assume that the Fed has been fairly close to its inflation target and it has certainly not been a failure of the policy. If you disagree with this, you might as well stop reading. Also, please bear in mind that this argument is about the Fed and the Fed only (not the ECB or the BoJ, whose inflation credentials are considerably worse).

Back to the main story, though. Former Governor of the National Bank of Poland Marek Belka was asked several years ago during a meeting with investors in London whether he thought it made sense to lower the inflation target in order to adjust to ever-low inflation prints. He seemed shocked at the suggestion and replied asking why anyone would want a tighter monetary policy at this juncture? Most people in the room didn’t get his point so he went on explaining that lowering inflation target by 1pp is tantamount to a promise that real rates would be durably higher by this amount. In other words, the central bank would have to hike interest rates faster than otherwise. Seems simple but for many this still isn’t straightforward. For some reason, the discussion didn’t move to raising inflation target back then.

Assuming the Fed is a credible central bank (and if it isn’t then I am not sure which one is…), there is a possibility that the inflation target gets moved to 4%. In the short to medium term it would be similar to letting inflation run a little bit hot after years of low growth, which the Fed wants to allow anyway but in the long run it would be a significant change. This would mean that the Fed commits to not tightening monetary policy as aggressively as it otherwise would. Would people believe it? Sure they would!

Now, the problem these days is reflexivity of markets. For example, Fed hikes interest rates, dollar strengthens, Fed needs to refrain from hiking. All this sometimes happens at a breath-taking pace. Also, we must not forget the Fed’s dual mandate, given that we seem to be at full employment. Therefore, it is safe to assume at the moment that the Fed will continue chugging along with rate hikes for the foreseeable future. Slowly but surely.

There is a significant problem here, which the Fed seems to have identified (judging by recent comments from Dudley) – so far the slow and predictable pace of hiking interest rates has not led to any significant tightening of monetary conditions as stocks continued rallying, spreads tightened and the curve flattened. This very much resembles the pre-crisis Greenspan’s conundrum era. The Fed hikes but the market eases thus leading to significant build-up in leverage until things go really ugly. So hiking rates, while appropriate, may prove deathly in the long run given how vast the financial markets have become.

What if we raise the inflation target simultaneously then? As mentioned above, this gives the signal to people that the Fed won’t be hiking rates as fast as it otherwise would. That said, given where monetary conditions are, some additional rate hikes would still be likely. So far it sounds similar to what we have had to date. But the important distinction is that – taking Fed’s credibility for granted – markets would need to start pricing in more inflation premium to the long end of the curve. This would offset the dreaded flattening pressure, which has made people so worried lately. Note that if the curve isn’t flattening then (among others):

the appreciating pressure on the USD is smaller than otherwise;

investors are not pushed out of fixed income assets into riskier investments (see insurance companies);

the banking sector stays buoyant.

Finally, imagine that these two forces, ie rate hikes and an increased inflation target get supplemented by offloading of the balance sheet. What the Fed would then achieve would be bearish steepening of the curve, which in my opinion is the necessary condition for us to finally move on from the aftermath of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. And if that happens, discussions about the US fiscal stimulus and tax cuts would probably be met by questions like “Donald who?!?” or “Who cares?”. This is because the economic impact of gradual bear steepening of the curve driven by a higher inflation target would trump (sic!) everything else.

*It’s been more than three years since I last posted. I don’t suppose it will take me another three years to write the next one but one should not assume that hereby the regular service resumes.

**I do realise that I made some short-cuts in reasoning above but this is a blog post from an anonymous bloke who sits in Warsaw and comments on the Fed policy, rather than a peer-reviewed paper in Journal of Applied Economics 🙂

I have given a friend a task lately to come up with a consistent theory explaining recent moves in markets. I said it could be a conspiracy theory, a preposterous theory or any-other-theory as long as it provides a consistent explanation of recent moves. His reply was “people are selling what they were very long of” but then he reflected and said that it wouldn’t be consistent with the equity rally.

While I do not aspire to give you a comprehensive explanation, I think I have one that at least I feel comfortable with. But let’s start with a snapshot of what’s going on:

USTs are selling off.

Inflation keeps surprising to the downside.

USD is not really rallying (except against the yen).

US equities are generally supported.

Credit is wider but not spectacularly so.

Implied vols are creeping higher.

EM bonds are under tremendous pressure and currencies are weakening.

Commodities had come off but have sort-of stabilised lately.

Now, it may well be the case that we’re simply experiencing a risk-off period, although I’m not sure equity and commodities markets would agree with that fully. Neither is the UST sell-off the first thing that springs to mind when discussing the dreaded risk-off.

A theory, which is a bit closer to my heart is what Paul Krugman put in his blog today but again the USD is not really rallying. Alternatively, stuff like the Mexican peso shouldn’t be under so much pressure in such a scenario, I reckon.

I see two main forces driving the market at the moment. The first one is the Bank of Japan. In my post Eddie Vedder and the Japanese carry from April 13 (USD/JPY approaching 100 ) I was being skeptical about the whole concept of yen being used to fund stuff elsewhere saying that the Japanese will probably find plenty of opportunities locally if they believe in Abenomics. However, I did also say that if anything they’d go for bonds in the US, which are looking considerably better than other global bonds on a currency-hedged basis. Similarly, if a Japanese investor wants to bet on the yen decline, then they should keep it simple and do USD/JPY rather than, say, AUD/JPY. And this is a very important point because whenever USDJPY jumps 1%, it pushes the USD index higher by almost 0.15%, thus creating the impression that the risk is off because the USD strengthens. Therefore, the previous correlation of “yen lower, risk higher” does not work like a charm anymore.

But then, if it’s just a localised intervention in USD/JPY, which has very little to do with the fundamentals in the US of A then perhaps it is safe to assume that some investors have been skewing their own USD index by buying a bit more USD against the JPY and selling the greenback against the EUR? I will explain in a second why.

A global bond investor, which has a WGBI index as a benchmark (that’s representative of around 3-4trn USD in AUM) has 23 countries to choose from. These include the bond behemoths like US, Germany, Japan or Italy but also smaller markets, mostly in Europe. And the way this investor looks at the world at the moment is as follows.

She just heard from Ben Bernanke that the Fed might start limiting bond purchases. Granted, this will still be an expansion of the balance sheet but at a slower pace. The investor in question will be reassured that this is not a policy mistake but rather the response to recent data when, e.g. looking at the tax receipts data (chart below):
The chart shows the annual rate of receipts of the federal government. Not only have we surpassed the pre-crisis highs in terms of revenues but also corporate income taxes are looking very healthy. And no, they are below the 2007 highs not because Apple is avoiding taxes or something but because there is a lot of tax credits originating from the crisis to work through.

The investor then looks at emerging markets (Mexico, Poland, Malaysia and South Africa are representing EMs in the WGBI index) and thinks that there is no way these are going to withstand the UST sell-off. Anyone who thinks otherwise is in a dreamworld in my opinion. There’s also the argument of positioning, which is very heavy.

Then the investor looks at her global growth/inflation forecasts and sees this big black hole between the Urals and the Atlantic Ocean, which is at a brink of deflation and already in a recession. As much as such a scenario for Europe would’ve been considered a disaster 2-3 years ago, it is now a fact of life. Please see my post Systemic ain’t what it used to be for a more detailed explanation. Suffice to say that if you have reasons to believe Bernanke when he says he will “taper” then you also should believe Mario Draghi when he says that he is prepared to do whatever it takes.

Meanwhile, there is a significant risk of a currency war breaking out in Asia. Yesterday the Japanese told their Korean colleagues to go and… do something about the won rather than whine over the yen depreciation. Not exactly a fantastic environment for investing in bonds over there, either.

So if you are a fixed-income dedicated investor then there’s really pretty much one place to be – European debt markets. To be sure, trends change and it can be reversed but if you believe in the global growth/reflation trade then probably shorting BTPs or SPGBs is not the first thing to do. In fact, under such a scenario I can very much imagine peripheral spreads tightening massively, particularly in Italy, which has now officially ceased to be a fiscal troublemaker.

In such a scenario EUR rallies, EGBs outperform and emerging markets closely tied to the EU (Poland, Hungary etc.) perform better than those linked to the US (Mexico). All that has indeed taken place.

I would like to spend a second on the EUR here. In one of my recent discussions with long-term investors an interesting theme started taking shape – what if Europe is about to experience what Japan had experienced in the last two decades but in a very short period of time, say 1-2 years? The current account is very positive, the appetite for debt is relatively strong and domestic demand will stay very sluggish but at the same the ECB won’t go “full monty” on printing. Unless it is forced to do so, of course, like it recently happened in Japan. What if the balance of payments forces coupled by the fact that virtually every major trading partner of the Eurozone is printing money push EUR to some ridiculously high levels before the pressure on the ECB is so strong that it can’t resist it anymore? So yes, the EUR would eventually crash but there would be a lot of stop losses beforehand.

I will be very honest – I am really struggling to get a good feel on the market at the moment. There are bond markets that I still like a lot, e.g. Italy, CEE or Russia but I think one needs to have something to offset the long rates exposure (my suggestion – Turkey). I generally think emerging markets in the EU should outperform Latam and Asia due to proximity to the deflationary vortex but moves have been quite brutal there, too. On the FX, if what I wrote is correct then the theme from the beginning of the year, i.e. being long EUR/MXN, EUR/RUB or EUR/MYR should work out really nicely.

And yes, I know this post would’ve been nice to have two weeks ago but this is what I make of it all anyway.

Last week was pretty eventful in terms of central banking. Obviously, the folk from the ECB grabbed a lot of headlines with their relative optimism but they are not the only ones trying to “whisper the reality”.

Meanwhile, two important emerging markets central banks decided to cut rates last week. And dramatically so. First, the National Bank of Poland decided to reconcile the market split between a 25bp cut and a no-change decision by… slashing rates by 50bp*. Two days later, the Banxico decided to do a similar thing, also exceeding the market expectations. Now how is that possible? Two central banks, which historically have been quite hawkish and have kept rates generally high have suddenly decided to get adventurous?

Let’s start with the NBP. Today the central bank revealed the details of its latest macroeconomic projections (a neat presentation can be accessed here). I found this chart quite interesting:

It shows two things. Firstly, according to the NBP models, potential growth rate has declined to below 3% from close to 6% before the crisis. Secondly, the lost output is so huge that the central bank expects the output gap to remain wide open at least until the end of 2015. In theory, that means at least two more years of zero underlying inflation pressures (caveat: see the Intermission section that follows). This is bold.

Intermission: Here I need to remind you of a significant distinction between potential output and potential growth rate. Have a look at the chart again – expected growth will exceed potential growth rate already at the beginning of 2015 (which by the way is pretty far off!). Only since then will the negative green bars start becoming smaller, reflecting the catching up with the lost potential. I don’t have a definitive answer to that but it is not entirely obvious that underlying inflation can start going up with green bars in the negative territory.

Now let’s move to Banxico. In the statement following the last meeting the central bank enumerated “structural advances” which have been made in recent years (translation here). They include:

the reduction in the level, volatility and inflation persistence (ok, ok, that’s just an “idem per idem” argument)

the fact that the various episodes of price adjustments have not resulted in second round effects

the anchoring of expectations inflation, and

the significant decline in inflation risk premium.

Of course Banxico is trying to make a big success out of it by saying that it has fostered an environment with less economic uncertainty. And good for them but someone cynical could say that this simply means that the economy has lost a significant part of its potential growth rate. I am not questioning the decision itself – I actually think the Mexicans did the right thing – but wider ramifications of it could eventually lead to even lower rates than now. Same as in Poland.

As I was thinking of the whole concept of potential growth rates in emerging economies I came across this very good article from Valor via Brazilian Bubble: Brazil’s Central Bank is in search of lost credibility. I don’t necessarily agree with everything that’s been said there but have a look at this paragraph:

Now, Brazil is not in a crisis, despite the fact that GDP has been showing subpar growth over the last two years and is on its way to perhaps the third year of such a situation. Despite that, everything indicates that the Copom is preparing to raise the Selic rate, repeating the standard reaction of a past that everybody thought had been left behind.

I can see where the Copom is coming from. Inflation remains of paramount importance in Brazil, to the point that they publish data to second decimals, as if it had any macroeconomic implications. I am not sure whether hiking rates will be the correct decision but I wanted to point out what can happen to an emerging economy if potential growth rates decline. If the economy has been showing “subpar growth over the last two years” and inflation is surging then maybe it wasn’t “subpar growth” after all?

There are of course positive examples, too. Turkey is one of them (although not very recently). I have not been in agreement with their recent policies and I think they’re throwing their undisputed success in fighting inflation to the wind but if we go a bit further back, we will see at least two episodes of a durable decline in the inflation rate. Both occurred after periods of significant economic hardship – first at the beginning of the millennium and then after the 2006 crisis. Now, Turkey had a grand opportunity to durably lower inflation after the 2008/09 global crisis but the central bank instead decided to focus on micromanaging pretty much every element of the economy. The reason I mention that is all three episodes of a shock to let’s call it “normal” level of inflation were used by the central bank to slash rates dramatically. In this respect, the CBRT recognised that the economy has become less inflationary. However, it remains to be seen whether its most recent response to global events is correct. In other words, the risk the CBRT is running is that it assumes that potential growth rates is higher than it actually is. It worked in the first two instances but that may be because they were driven by local developments (rather than the global crisis like in 2008/09). If the CBRT is not lucky this time, events could necessitate a similar approach to the Copom.

How to trade this? There seem to have been two approaches to monetary policies in recent years in emerging markets. On the one hand, we have seen activist central banks such as BCB or CBRT which have actively engaged in currency wars etc. They seem to be operating under the assumption that they need to counter whatever it is that Fed/ECB/BoJ conjure. I would call that “externally driven monetary policy”. On the other side of the spectrum you have the likes of Poland or Mexico, which – while acknowledging the impact of external developments – have maintained their reaction functions roughly unchanged. The latter group is beginning to realise that their economies are developing considerably slower than they could and so chances are that last week’s rate decisions are not the last surprises they have for us. As such money market curves should steepen there. The former group is to some extent the opposite. They are either like Brazil coming to the conclusion that inflation is becoming an issue despite slow growth. Or, like Turkey, they keep playing with fire pretending that the economy is still not strong enough to push inflation higher. One should be very careful being long duration in those, in my opinion.

* Despite huge temptation, I will not dwell on how ridiculous the communications policy of the Poles is. After two months of becoming increasingly more hawkish and suggesting a pause, they decided to cut more than expected to show that they’re done. I did not lose money on that so it’s not my grief speaking but I really believe this is the worst Monetary Policy Council among the mainstream emerging countries.

After a week of travelling I came back to see that Moody’s has finally pulled the trigger on the country where I currently reside. This is such a non-story that it feels stupid to even mention but I suppose it will be making headlines for a little while longer. And this is a very good thing.

Before I start, however, I would like to thank the British government for conducting a massive social experiment, which will be used in decades to come as a proof that a tight fiscal/loose monetary policy mix does not work in an environment of a liquidity trap. We sort of knew that from the theory anyway but now we have plenty of data to base that on.

Secondly, I will be referring to my favourite IS/LM model. If you want to read more about it, a very good tutorial can be found here.

So… Let’s assume for a second that the Osborne/Cameron duo is capable of taking a stop-loss on their policy. I know it is a heroic assumption when discussing any politicians but why not…

When looking at record low cost of borrowing, a severely depressed economy and a central bank that does not even pretend anymore to be independent or targeting inflation the recipe should probably be to spend more. In the standard IS/LM model an increase in government spending over taxes (i.e. boosting the deficit) pushes the IS curve to the right. Thus, both the output level and the level of interest rate will increase. Consequently, the exchange rate should appreciate as capital flows to the country in question. This in turn leads to widening of the trade deficit. Ideally, the government would want the Bank of England to step in and limit the increase in interest rates (a.k.a. QE) so that the currency does not appreciate. And, as I mentioned before, the BoE is more than willing to do so.

Let’s now have a look at the situation from another angle. I have been going through he Bank of England’s quarterly reports in reference to trade (which can be found here) and I have found two interesting charts. The first one looks at episodes of rapid moves in the British pound and the impact on the trade balance:

The relationship is pretty strong, which is why many people are calling for debasing of the sterling, particularly after G20 gave a pale-green light to such activities for countries, which are effectively in a liquidity trap.

The second chart shows why debasing of the sterling makes an awful lot of sense. It shows two measures of the International Investment Position – the standard one (i.e. with FDIs at book value) and what I would call a “market” one (i.e. with FDIs at market value).

You can see that the UK is looking quite a bit better if you take into account the actual values of FDIs. I would suggest that the recent rally in global equity prices has at least kept the blue line in the positive territory. This essentially means that GBP devaluation not only boosts the terms of trade but also makes the UK richer. Not very many countries are in such a pleasant situation (think of many emerging economies with significant external debt).

Again, weakening of the sterling does seem to be a very appealing strategy for the authorities. There is, however, one important problem – GBP devaluation is unlikely to bring extra revenues to the government and could actually make the fiscal position a bit worse. Here’s why – devaluing one’s currency and narrowing of a current account deficit means that the country’s savings are increasing in relative terms to investments. Granted, this may well have to happen considering a huge stock of private debt but this is not desirable from the growth point of view. On top of that, the J-curve effect dictates that the initial impact of currency devaluation will be actually adverse.

What I am trying to say is that while GBP devaluation has a lot of positive sides, it will probably not work on its own because it will further depress domestic demand thus putting a strain of public finances.

Therefore, I do believe that Britain has finally cornered itself into a situation where there is overwhelming evidence that Mr Osborne should really start spending. He should also assume that Mr Carney will not let that spending lead to appreciation of Real Effective Exchange Rate (a bit more on that mechanism in one of my previous posts entitled “Be careful what you target or am I in the right church?“). That is to say that the Bank of England will keep nominal and real rates very low. In my opinion this is the only rational way of the situation that we’re currently in. Then again, I am assuming the impossible here, i.e. that the politicians know what the stop-loss is.

How to trade this? I don’t normally trade anything related to the UK (except GBP/PLN) but I would assume that any sell-offs in Gilts should be used as an opportunity to buy. As far as the sterling is concerned, the fact that exports outside of the eurozone are now bigger than to the eurozone, EUR/GBP is a cross that doesn’t make that much sense. I would very much prefer the cable, or better yet selling the sterling against EM currencies as this is where the adjustment in trade balances will have to come from.

As promised, a quick word about inflation linkers in emerging markets.

While in most cases, the path of inflation in the coming 3-6 months is pretty much given; many economies are a completely different level of their respective inflation rates. Importantly, volatility of inflation rates also differs wildly. Take the following chart as and example. It shows the relationship between average inflation since the beginning of 2005 (so around 100 observations) and the standard deviation of CPI in the same time-frame.

As you can see, there is a group of emerging economies which have achieved a relatively low level of inflation (the circled part of the chart) but they have had mixed success in terms of staying close to the average. Arguably, Israel, Malaysia and Poland are the best in this field.

As you move to countries with higher average inflation rates, standard deviation tends to rise. However, note that we are talking here in percentage points, as opposed to normalised values. In other words, we say that Poland is “better” than Turkey just because it has had a lower average and a lower standard deviation. However, if you normalised standard deviation by dividing it by the average you will see that Turkey has been much closer to its average than Poland. We will use that in a minute.

The chart below combines the approach of the volatility in inflation rates (i.e. standard deviation divided by the average) with the distance of the latest CPI print from respective central banks’ targets (note that for some countries I had to make assumptions as their central banks are not inflation targeters).

In this chart we see, for example, that South Africa is 1.2pp above the 4.5% target (mid-point of the 3-6% SARB range) and that standard deviation of CPI prints since 2005 has been around 40% of the average (which was 6.1%).

How to trade this? Someone could ask what the point of looking at such a chart is. Well, as worries about inflation resurface along with some acceleration in growth rates, investors will be willing to bet that some emerging economies could have their inflation rates moving up fast. At the same time, the central banks would have to respond. Therefore, I think that what we’re looking for is countries, which

currently have inflation below (or close to) the central bank’s target

have experienced significant volatility of inflation prints in the past.

In those economies you should consider looking at inflation linkers or shorting nominal bonds.

When using such a comparison, Chile stands out as a good candidate with low current inflation and high inflation volatility. Similarly, Israel has a history of quite rapid moves in inflation rates and we also can be reasonably sure that the output gap there is insignificant. Finally, Poland is looking at rapid declines in inflation rates at the moment, mathematically increasing odds of a rebound in the second half of the year and indeed in 2014.

There are also many caveats to this approach but I have found it to be a useful starting point when trying to play a global inflation / disinflation theme.

Econbrowser ran a post entitled “Dude, where’s my cheap gas?“. It has a few interesting charts indicating that it will take some time before the shale gas/oil revolution impacts prices at the pumps. I think there could be a bit more into that story and quite soon, too.

The chart below shows the spread between Brent and WTI oil prices.

This has stayed elevated for quite some time and for various reasons and it seems to me that the market is no longer paying attention to why this is actually happening. Many have been citing he Middle East turmoil as one of the reasons. While this is certainly a factor, why would we see that only in Brent prices? Firstly, Brent and the Middle East blend are not exactly substitutes. Secondly, we are not seeing that risk in any other market (have a look at the Israeli shekel or forward points in USD/SAR in Saudi Arabia). Finally, there is tons of new supply coming from Iraq and some African nations, replacing the lost output from Iran. In short, I don’t find the whole Middle East hypothesis plausible.

So if it’s not supply disruptions/changes then maybe it’s demand? If you go through the Chinese data (and seasonally adjust them), you will find that the dynamics is pretty decent. Moreover, for years everyone has been talking about Chinese urbanisation, which inevitably brings more demand for fuels (think of it as the copper-oil spread). We can’t be certain how far advanced in the process we are but things are progressing in the direction of less investments and more consumption.

Meanwhile, the world is fixated on declines in inflation, which are about to happen or are already happening. Have a look at the momentum in US core inflation (below, annualised rates).

There is almost nothing worrying about this picture unless of course you are a firm believer in the “what goes down, must go up” theory. In all likelihood the US inflation picture will not change in the coming months, particularly in the core. But what about the rest of the world?

Let’s not forget that vast majority of economies have experienced a significant drop in potential growth rates over the last couple of years. This means that any increase in growth could lead to inflation sooner than we think. Sure, many will say that it’s not just the growth rate that matters and we need to close the output gap first but the worry is that the world where productivity is on the decline any growth acceleration could be inflationary. Add to that a sustained supply shock and you have a recipe for a pretty decent repricing of interest rate expectations.

Now, I don’t mean to sound alarmist about inflation and I would not call myself a vivid supporter of people who call for repetition of the Weimar Republic (yes, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, I’m talking about you…). But the prevailing way of thinking is that many countries will not need to hike interest rates for longer than you would normally expect simply because the additional carry would strengthen their currencies. This is particularly the case in emerging markets. The same emerging markets, for which the growth consensus remains pretty bullish…

Where does this leave us? Improving leading indicators, lower potential GDP growth rates, reduced productivity growth and possibly quite persistent upward trend in oil prices. For me these are crucial reasons to worry about bond markets in many (emerging) economies. In my mind they are certainly more valid than the US Treasury sell-off cliche, which dominates media and analysis.

How to trade this? Find a country with a significant trade deficit and improving growth outlook (e.g. Turkey) and be defensive there. Also, look for activist central banks (e.g. Israel) and be aware that those guys can and will move very quickly. Additionally, if you need to own bonds, go for short duration in higher yielders (such as Russia or Brazil). Finally, think if it doesn’t make sense to switch out of suppliers or industrial materials into energy producers – this could be a very long term trend, unless of course someone comes up with a car that runs on water. And by the way, I would like to wish that last bit to all of you (unless you’re a Russian oligarch).